VANCOUVER: Anti-Gay Crackpot Bill Whatcott Marches With Fake Group In Pride Parade, Hands Out Fake Condoms

In June, anti-gay crackpot and former prostitute Bill Whatcott staged his arrest with Porno Pete at a Calgary university where they attempted to distribute hate flyers. Two weeks ago Porno Pete slithered around San Francisco's Dore Alley Fair with his camera. And this weekend Whatcott marched with a fake group at Vancouver Pride where they handed out "condoms" that actually contained an anti-gay screed. That's Whatcott with the pink hair in the photo. He brags:

Dear Friends, I am pleased to announce that the Vancouver Gay Pride Committee allowed me to march in this year's homosexual pride parade and hand out 2500 "Gospel" condoms. Trojan condoms also was kind enough to donate 500 of their not safe enough latex condoms to my contingent, so we used them as a cover for our Gospel condoms that if read correctly and applied properly will guarantee you truly "safe sex" as in life long heterosexual marriage and also eternal life in the world to come. The bags my two activists Darcy and Jonathan are carrying in the video contain life saving and soul redeeming Gospel condoms. Thanks to the generosity of Trojan condoms we were able to cover up our Gospel condoms with a layer of Trojan condoms and avoid detection while we evangelized the entire parade route! While evangelism and the issues of homofascism and where one will spend the rest of eternity are deadly serious issues, we decided that seeing as we purchased our parade permit fair and square and seeing as all the pagans were having fun while rebelling against God, we would have fun too, while evangelizing the parade route and winning souls for the Lord.

According to Whatcott, only one parade-goer opened a fake condom in his group's presence. When she became visibly upset at the message inside, one of Whatcott's co-conspirators lied for Jesus and told her that she'd been mistakenly given the condom that he'd been handed by a "homophobe" at the parade. He then gave her one of the real condoms that they had fraudulently obtained from Trojan.

Here's a portion of the message enclosed in the fake condom:

Dear Homosexual Pride Parade Attendee, If you are attending Vancouver’s ungodly pride parade and have come to receive this literature, I want to let you know I am very pleased God has chosen you to be a recipient of the truth contained in this package. God has a plan for you that is much better than chasing the carnal desires celebrated as something to be proud of in the homosexual pride parade. Homosexuality is portrayed as an immutable, harmless, sexual orientation that is to be accepted and even celebrated. This is a lie. Anatomically everyone is heterosexual. The body is not created for sodomy. The truth is those who give themselves over to homosexuality suffer grievously because of their sin. In spite of billions of dollars being spent fighting sexually transmitted diseases ravaging the homosexual subculture, homosexuals are still suffering and dying from AIDS and other homosexually acquired diseases. In Toronto 23% of self-identified homosexuals admit to being HIV+. AIDS, anal cancer, and Hepatitis B are potentially fatal diseases that are rampant in Vancouver’s homosexual community. Is this something to be proud of?

The message includes a photograph of an emaciated AIDS patient.  Below is a very brief clip from their scam. There are many other photos here.

(Tipped by JMG reader David)

CANADA: Straight Man Beaten For "Looking Gay," Cops Seeking Assailant

And it's not the first time this has happened to him. Via the Surrey Now:

Kerry Tyler Street, 25, of Fleetwood, skateboarded a little too close to a gay-hating thug in Guildford on Wednesday afternoon and ended up lying in a pool of his own blood. The attack happened in the 14600-block of 104th Avenue, shortly after 3 p.m. As he passed by, Street said, this guy punched him in the face, and once again as he fell, busting his nose and jaw on the way down. This was followed by a flurry of kicks to his face, Street said. The attacker was screaming, “faggot this, faggot that.” Street said four witnesses rushed up help him as his attacker “just kind of walked away. “I’m lying there in a pool of my own blood, it’s getting bigger and bigger, and he just kind of walks away,” Street said. “It makes me quite literally sick to my stomach.” Street said this is the second time he’s been beaten up by people who presumed him to be gay, “and the catch is that, well, I’m not gay.”

The victim has posted a YouTube clip about the attack.

CANADA: British Columbia To Launch HIV Test With 14-Day Post-Infection Result

The Vancouver Sun reports:

British Columbia will be the first province in Canada to use a more accurate HIV detection test that has greatly improved the diagnosis of early or acute HIV infection. The new test, which will be utilized provincially following the results of a study led by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, detects the virus as soon as one to two weeks after it enters the body, compared with up to four weeks using standard HIV testing. That’s important, because people have a higher risk of transmitting HIV to others during the earliest stage of infection.

The study, released Wednesday in the AIDS Journal, found that nucleic acid amplification testing (NAAT) greatly improved the diagnosis of early or acute HIV infection, according to a joint release by the BCCDC and the Provincial Health Services Authority. The study estimated that between 25 and 75 new HIV infections were avoided as a result of a pilot program that promoted the pooled NAAT method — a test developed in the U.S. — since April 2009 at six clinics accessed by gay and bisexual men in Vancouver.

The new test is more expensive and will only be used in "targeted settings where it will have the most impact."

At Vancouver Pride 2012

Attendance was estimated to be 500,000.

SATURDAY: Vancouver Foreskin Pride

Source.

British Columbia Launches Campaign To Test Every Sexually Active Person For HIV

British Columbia has launched an ambitious campaign to give an HIV test to every person who has ever been sexually active.

The sweeping approach is an attempt to catch the estimated 1 per cent of people who are unaware they are HIV-positive and aren’t taking advantage of an effective treatment program that is available provincially. A key component of the new project is an HIV antibody test that produces results in about 30 seconds, from a single drop of blood taken from a person’s fingertip. “If you have HIV and don’t know it, you can’t do anything [to get treated],” Reka Gustafson, medical director of communicable disease control for Vancouver Coastal Health, said at a news conference Wednesday. Julio Montaner, director of B.C.’s Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, described the test, which was developed in Vancouver, as “a very important new step” in the fight against AIDS.

Thanks to an earlier aggressive campaign to get those already infected on HIV medications, the province claims to have reduced new infections by 95% since the mid-90s. (Persons taking HIV medications are statistically considered less potentially infectious than a random person unaware of his status.) Vancouver also offers "safe injection" sites where IV drug users are provided new needles for use on the premises. (Tipped by JMG reader bstewart23)

RELATED: In 2008 New York City announced a similar campaign to test every adult in the Bronx.

BRITISH COLUMBIA: Court Overturns Canada's Assisted Suicide Ban

British Columbia's provincial Supreme Court has overturned Canada's ban on assisted suicide.

Justice Lynn Smith of the British Columbia supreme court declared the laws invalid but suspended her ruling for one year to give Canada's federal parliament time to draft legislation with her ruling in mind. The federal government is expected to appeal against the decision. The case will likely go to the Canadian supreme court. Smith allowed the ailing Gloria Taylor, 64, to seek doctor-assisted suicide during the one-year period if she wants. Taylor was diagnosed in 2009 with Lou Gehrig's disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS, which progresses rapidly and is always fatal. Smith said the provisions in Canada's constitution infringed on Taylor's rights to life, liberty and security of person, and discriminated against grievously ill or physically disabled patients who wanted to have some control over their circumstances at the end of their lives. It has been illegal in Canada to counsel, aid or abet suicide and is punishable by up to 14 years' jail.

Canada's Euthanasia Prevention Commission believes a change will result in people killing their parents.

Most elder abuse is hidden from view – and if we can’t detect the abuse now, how are we going to do it when the stakes are raised? I have seen how easily influenced older people can be, and how inadequate are our national strategies against suicide. The present decision, which should be immediately appealed and corrected, is a huge step backwards, a blow to public safety, and would force changes in public policy which would do more harm than good.

In the United States, physician-assisted suicide is only legal in Oregon, Montana, and Washington state and there are significant restrictions on when it can be done.

HIV/AIDS Plummets In British Columbia

AIDS deaths and new HIV infections are plummeting in British Columbia. Experts say the decline is due to an aggressive policy of placing the newly infected immediately on a drug regimen and thus reducing their infectiousness.

“We’re particularly pleased to see that our treatment-as-prevention strategy has taken off big-time,” said Dr. Julio S. G. Montaner, director of the British Columbia Center for Excellence in H.I.V./AIDS. His center was a pioneer in the strategy, which involves searching aggressively for people at risk of H.I.V. infection, talking them into being tested and putting those who are infected on antiretroviral drugs immediately, which lowers by 96 percent the chances that they will infect others.

Credit is also being given to Vancouver's "safe-injection" center where IV drug users can get and use clean needles on the premises.

San Francisco and New York City have also adopted "treatment as prevention" policies, but some HIV activists have denounced the idea due to questions about the long-term side effects of taking the medications for decades. Reknowned HIV/AIDS activist Sean Strub:

This is, in essence, a chemical quarantine. People should be given the option to take drugs to reduce their chance of transmitting to others, but to recommend treatment for people in the absence of conclusive science that it will, on average, provide a greater net benefit than harm, is unethical. Why haven't the NYC DOH--and the other promoters of "treat everyone with HIV, no matter their medical need"--been out advocating for the clinical trials to definitively answer the question as to when is the optimal time for a person with HIV to commence treatment? We know that some people with high CD4 counts can go years and years, some even decades, without going on treatment and suffering the cumulative toxicities of treatment. But now NYC DOH, as well as San Francisco's DOH, are advocating putting those people on treatment. This is not healthcare, it is a chemical quarantine.

Canadian Court Upholds Ban On Polygamy

British Columbia's Supreme Court has upheld Canada's ban on polygamy. Which will surely disappoint anti-gay activists in America.

In a 335-page decision released on Wednesday, Chief Justice Robert Bauman ruled in favour of the section of the Criminal Code outlawing polygamous unions. In his ruling, Bauman said while the law does infringe on religious freedom, it is justified given the harm polygamy causes to children, women and society. “I have concluded that this case is essentially about harm,” Bauman wrote in the decision that was handed down Wednesday morning in Vancouver.

Interestingly, a spokesperson for a Canadian polyamorists group applauded the decision, saying, "The formality of marriage is really not a big issue in the polyamorous community."

Rights Groups Jointly Demand That Canada Arrest George W. Bush For War Crimes

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have issued to a joint call for Canadian authorities to arrest former president George W. Bush on war crimes charges. Duyba is scheduled to visit a British Colombia economic summit next week.

There is overwhelming evidence that Bush and other senior administration officials authorized and implemented a regime of torture and ill-treatment of hundreds of detainees in US custody,including at least two Canadian citizens. Under the Convention against Torture, Canada is obligated to prosecute individuals suspected of committing torture found in its territory if other countries have failed to do so. The Obama administration has failed to investigate allegations of involvement in torture by Bush or other senior administration officials, and none are expected.

The Vancouver Sun reports that Canada plans to ignore the demands.

"Amnesty International cherrypicks cases to publicize based on ideology. This kind of stunt helps explain why so many respected human rights advocates have abandoned Amnesty International," Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said. Kenney noted in an email that in the past, Amnesty had not asked for Canada to bar former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, even though the rights organization itself said he had presided over "arbitrary arrests, detention, and criminal prosecution."

Gay-Bashing In British Columbia

Canadian police are investigating the gay-bashing of a British Columbia man who was brutally beaten last month while he and a friend enjoyed a rural natural hot spring.

The victim was relaxing in the hot pool with his companion, both men from Burnaby, when they were joined by two other men and a woman. The man who identified himself as ‘Terry’ discovered the men were homosexual and allegedly told his friends he was going to kill them. As one man ran from the pool to hide, the other man was viciously beaten as he begged for mercy, suffering cuts and bruising to most of his body. He was left injured in the snow as the suspect and his two friends left on snow mobiles.

The suspect is believed to be from Calgary. According to the above-linked story, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police describe the attack as a "crime of ignorance."

CANADA: British Columbia Supreme Court Weighs Decriminalizing Polygamy

In a trial that is expected to last through January, British Columbia's Supreme Court is hearing the case of a fundamentalist sect of the Mormon Church, who are arguing that laws against polygamy violate Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The case involves now-dismissed criminal charges brought against the leaders of a small polygamous community in Bountiful, British Columbia.

Residents of Bountiful practise what Wickett described as a form of "fundamental Mormonism," which includes plural marriage. Although the mainstream Mormon church renounced polygamy more than a century ago, members of the FLDS believe plural marriage is a tenet of the faith. The community in Bountiful has split into two factions and Wickett represents the congregation with ties to the U.S.-based FLDS. About 550 people in Bountiful are part of that faction, and about 55 of them are polygamous, said Wickett. Lawyers for the provincial and federal governments have argued that polygamy has created a long list of problems in Bountiful, including child brides, teenage pregnancy, the trafficking of young girls to meet the demand for wives, the subjugation of women and the expulsion of boys to reduce competition for brides.

Wickett said there is very little evidence before the court of any of that happening in Bountiful. Rather, he said, critics with a long-standing bias are relying on the experiences of polygamous communities in the United States. "Members of the FLDS know full well that their beliefs and practices are neither understood … nor accepted by the majority of Canadians," said Wickett. Wickett said if there is abuse within Bountiful — which he suggested is no different than in a monogamous society — the existing law makes it worse because victims would be reluctant to come forward.

Christianist websites in the U.S. are following the case closely as they have long contended that same-sex marriage opens the door to polygamy.

CANADA: Widespread HAART Treatment Reduces New HIV Infections

A new study just published in British Columbia suggests that a very effective way to prevent new HIV infections may be to put all pozzers on HAART therapy.

A new study conducted in British Columbia has found that the infection rate in the province has been halved since 1996 by the widespread adoption of HAART, researchers reported online Sunday in the journal Lancet and at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna. For every 100 new patients treated, the infection rate went down 3%, Dr. Julio Montaner, director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, reported. "This study strengthens the evidence that maximizing HAART coverage within current medical guidelines will help to curb the spread of HIV," Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, said in a statement. The agency funded the study. "These findings are especially important since new HIV cases have remained stubbornly steady in the United States at a rate of about 56,000 per year for the past 10 years." British Columbia is a good place for such a study because it is relatively small — population about 4,420,00 — and everyone in the province receives free medical care.

Earlier this year the San Francisco Health Department recommended patients begin HAART therapy immediately upon diagnosis, regardless of disease progression, a strategy that has been met with some controversy.

BRITISH COLUMBIA: Couple Shuts Down Bed & Breakfast Rather Than Serve Gays

A Christian couple in Grand Forks, British Columbia has decided to close their bed and breakfast rather than face additional charges of discriminating against gay customers.

"We've been harassed so bad we're not running (the B&B)," said Lee Molnar, who lives with his wife Susan in the B.C. community of Grand Forks. Their lawyer Ronald Smith said they are "devastated" but also feel they can't continue to operate Grand Forks Riverbend Bed and Breakfast for fear they will be asked again "to violate their religious beliefs" by renting to a gay couple. Smith is representing the couple in a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal case scheduled to begin Wednesday, but it was postponed. "They're just a retired couple in Grand Forks who thought they would open their home to guests and here they are in the centre of a firestorm," Smith said. "They're a lovely couple. They don't want to be thought of as discriminating, but they're Christians who don't feel they can violate their religious beliefs."

Last year Shaun Eadie and Brian Thomas attempted to book a room, but were called back and told "this won't work out" after they confirmed to the owners that they are gay. The owners plan to argue in court that under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, "they have the right to decide what kinds of behaviours take place in their home."

BRITISH COLUMBIA: Students To Cross-Dress In Protest Over Homophobia

Student at a British Columbia high school are planning to cross-dress in protest of the cancellation of anti-homophobia events.

Students at Columneetza Secondary in Williams Lake were supposed to have an assembly on Tuesday to see an anti-homophobia presentation organized by the local Gay Straight Alliance. But the event was cancelled, along with a so-called Gender Bender day when students would dress up as the opposite sex, according to student organizer Lexi Fallel. Diane Wright, the superintendent of the Cariboo-Chilcotin School District, confirmed the school board cancelled some of the events after parents complained last week. "They felt that it was promoting the gay lifestyle, rather than promoting anti-homophobia," said Wright. Students face consequences if they show up at school dressed in the opposite gender's clothing, said Fallel. "We were actually told that any student that comes to school dressed in the opposite gender's clothing will be sent home and suspended and it could be on our permanent record," said Fallel.

Students are planning their protest for this Friday. School administrators say no one will be suspended.

(Tipped by JMG reader Neil)

Vancouver 2010 Olympics Start Tonight

Here's a reminder to set your DVRs for tonight's opening ceremonies at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Longtime readers may recall how completely nuts I went for the opening ceremonies in Beijing in 2008. Back then I closed with: "You totally have to feel sorry for Vancouver. There's no way the next Olympics can come close to what the Chinese did." Understanding that the Winter Games are never quite the same spectacle of the Summer Games, I look forward to what Canada has on store for us. Coverage begin on NBC at 7:30pm EST.

Vancouver Time Lapse

Beautiful photography and a gorgeous tune too.

British Columbia Government Reverses Pledge To Support 2011 Outgames

The British Columbia provincial government is reneging on verbal pledges to support the 2011 Outgames in Vancouver.

When planning the games in 2007 and 2008, Outgames chair John Boychuk says representatives from "ministries associated with sport" initially made a verbal promise to contribute $400,000 to the event. Eventually that verbal commitment was reduced to $150,000 to $200,000. "A year later they told us that things were a little bit tight but on track," Boychuk says. "After 18 months they said, 'We can't continue to commit to any amount.'" Boychuk says the uncertainty surrounding government funding pushed Outgames organizers to move from planning a volunteer-run event to working with a corporate partner. International Conference Services (ICS) will now provide secretarial, sponsorship, accommodation, registration and accounting services for the event, according to Boychuk.

The partnership with ICS will also give Vancouver's Outgames the backing it needs to secure facilities for the event. "In order to be secure a hotel contract you have to have money to be able to back up what you're asking for," Boychuk explains. "So if you're asking for 250 hotel rooms for five nights you have to put up a bond or credit card. We don't have the cash to do such a thing so we have to have someone with that line of credit." Boychuk is still hopeful that the 2011 Outgames will receive provincial funding.

The 2006 Outgames in Montreal ended C$5.3M in debt.